Twenty minutes later we were breakfasting together in a cool, spacious room the windows of which opened upon the porch.  The judge, after satisfying himself that we were being well served, had disappeared, leaving us alone.  It was a beautiful morning, the birds singing outside, the sunlight sifting through the branches of the great oaks shading the windows.  Not a sound, other than the rustling of leaves, broke the silence.  My companion appeared disinclined to talk, her eyes turned away from me.  The constraint became so marked I endeavored to start conversation, but with poor result.

“Our meeting has been an odd one,” I began, “romantic enough to form a basis for fiction.”

Her glance shifted to my face.

“Do you think so?  I merely find it extremely embarrassing.”

“Then I will withdraw at once,” I insisted, hurt by the indifference of her voice.  “I had supposed you wished me to remain until now—­surely your words implied this.”

“Oh, yes!  I did, and you are in no way to blame.  It was an impulse, and I failed to realize that it would involve deceit to an old friend.  Perhaps I am too easily hurt, but I am afraid Judge Moran half suspects the truth.  Anyway you must go immediately.”

“We shall part as friends?”

She hesitated, as though considering the full intent of my request.

“Hardly that, Lieutenant Galesworth.  The word ‘friend’ should mean much, and we are merely chance acquaintances—­politically enemies.”

“I had hoped that difference—­merely the accident of war—­might have been swept aside.  It has no personal weight with me, and I supposed you were of broader mind.”

“I am,” she responded earnestly.  “Some of my best friends are Northerners, wearing that uniform, but, as it chances, we have met in war, playing at cross-purposes.  You are a Federal scout whom I have unwittingly helped through the Confederate lines.  Surely I have done enough already to help you—­perhaps to injure the cause I love—­without being asked for more.  Under other conditions we might continue friends, but not as matters stand.”

“Yet later—­when the war ends?”

“It is useless to discuss what may occur then.  There is little likelihood we shall ever meet after to-day.  Indeed, I have no wish that we should.”

It was a dismissal so clearly expressed I could only bow, wondering what it was I saw in the depths of her eyes which seemed almost to contradict the utterance of the lips.

“You leave me no choice.”

“There is none.  I have no desire to be considered an enemy, and there is no possibility for us to become friends.  We are but the acquaintances of a chance meeting.”  She held out her hand across the table, the impulsive movement robbing her words of their sting.  “You understand this is not indifference, but necessity.”

I clasped closely the white fingers extended toward me, my heart throbbing, but my lips held prisoners by her eyes.